July 25, 2010

Four years ago I wrote about leather britches here. 5 or 6 years ago my mom and I started the process of sourcing our seeds from a cousin. 115 years ago my Aunt Laura was given the seeds. Who knows how long they were carefully saved and transported from homesite to homesite before that. In between 1895 or so and now various members of my family have grown the seed. This past week I was able to serve a mess of beans to my mom and she said they were just like she remembered from long ago. That my friends is success.

Today is one of those days where waking and sleeping blend together in the strangest ways. One minute I'm in a dream that a coworker has taken me to South Africa. Another minute I go, "Hey, I don't have a job, and I've never been to Africa." Then I wake up, roll over, and go back to another dream. It's my cat who finally woke me up. She wanted fresh water, and I gave it to her. Then I settled back into bed.

This may seem like the archetype of the day where nothing happened. But there is something throughout the day that makes it perfectly worthwhile: love. I'm not trying to get all mushy. But there's something fulfilling about lying down and cuddling with a fuzzy, purring member of another species. To know that even when you are not doing anything active, you are still making somebody else in the world happy.

When TerribleAspect mentioned that the company he worked for was hosting its annual meeting in Milwaukee I told him that I thought it would be fun to try and meet up. I gave him my number however in his eagerness to see the wonderful Wisconsin sights he left it on his desk so I didn't find out that he was in town until I saw a message in my inbox here on E2. I wasn't sure if it was too late to call so I sent him a message back. Fortunately we were able to connect via phone but he was reluctant to plan anything for Sunday since he had the small matter of his missing luggage to resolve.

Sunday we agreed that attending German Fest would be on our agenda for the afternoon. When I asked what I should wear I was wondering if it was breezy down by the lakefront. Thank goodness I did ask because I would have felt really stupid walking around in cargo pants and a t-shirt while the person I was with wore a suit. Driving downtown can be a bit challenging especially if the roads are being repaired. After I picked up TerribleAspect I showed off my mad driving skillz by ignoring a red light. That was fairly embarrassing but I managed to get over it and I even found a halfway decent parking spot close to nothing on the wrong side of all the attractions.

Walking around downtown Milwaukee can be a lot of fun. Typically it is more fun if things like restaurants and bars are open however we did find a box of abandoned books in a back alleyway that seemed promising until we dug through it. After that we heard nature calling and since the Ethiopian restaurant was the only thing we could find that was open for business we felt obligated to obey their posted sign informing people that their bathrooms were only available for paying customers. Fiscally speaking this was a conservative choice as we ended up spending less than five dollars for tea, Diet Pepsi and unlimited restroom access.

When I was in Chicago someone told me that I had a good sense of direction. I almost laughed out loud because I've been lost so many times I call myself a professional loser. Fortunately for TerribleAspect my memory is better than my sense of direction so we were able to find our parking spot without too much trouble. On our way back we walked along the Milwaukee river. For a while we sat on a spot off the promenade. I felt bad because I like the sun but he prefers the shade and since he didn't know that Wisconsin weather is unpredictable he hadn't packed clothing that would be appropriate for eighty-eight degree heat accompanied by eighty-two percent humidity.